1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for measuring a hemoglobin concentration within blood using light and heat light scattering and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method, which are capable of quantitatively measuring a hemoglobin concentration within blood by measuring a pattern generated when a laser is scanned onto a micro channel including blood and detecting a change of a scattering pattern generated when light and heat stimulus light sources having different wavelengths are simultaneously scanned.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hemoglobin is iron-containing protein present in a red blood cell and is major carriage means of oxygen included in blood. Hemoglobin deficiency leads to an anemia symptom. The cause of anemia is very various. For example, the measurement of a hemoglobin concentration is used for a classification for each cause of anemia. For example, if anemia is generated due to iron deficiency, erythrocyte indices are reduced, but are increased in anemia attributable to vitamin B12 deficiency or folic acid deficiency. Anemia may be generated due to other many causes. It is very important to measure the amount of hemoglobin in first diagnosing and determining anemia because erythrocyte indices have a different aspect for each diagnosis. Furthermore, hemoglobin content is an index sensitive to iron deficiency. Such an index is used to diagnose a disease attributable to iron deficiency or to monitor the effect of iron therapy within the vein.
Various technologies have been developed in order to measure a hemoglobin concentration within blood because hemoglobin content may be used to diagnose several diseases as described above. A technology that is a standard for the measurement of a hemoglobin concentration is to break the lipidic bilayer of hemoglobin using potassium cyanide (KCN) and perform a colorimetric analysis. However, there is a problem in that toxic chemical must be used whenever a hemoglobin concentration is measured. In addition such a method, an electrochemical method and an immunoassay method are suggested. Such methods are problematic in that modeling dependency is high or accuracy is low, an additional sensor using a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) or electrochemistry must be fabricated, and a lot of time is taken to measure a concentration.